


Yellow Wallpaper

by december_dream



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, F/M, Fear of Death, Fluffy Ending, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Mention of Death, Mentions of Cancer, Tumour, covid is implied, mentions of needles, physical illness, shit has NOT been bumping and i needed to write a fix it fic for my own life, vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-13 13:46:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29279406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/december_dream/pseuds/december_dream
Summary: Iwaizumi comes home after learning that you’d gone to the hospital by yourself.
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime/Reader
Kudos: 11





	Yellow Wallpaper

**Author's Note:**

> the past three days have been a bit of a health scare for me, except it’s been more like a few years of it, so uh vent post ig?

He hates that he can’t go home, that he has to stay in a hotel with MSBY just so they can have a volleyball season. He’d give anything, literally sell his soul, if it meant even one night of going home and just holding you.

But no - he’s stuck with Hinata, Bokuto, Sakusa, and Atsumu nearly round the clock.

He can’t even call you throughout the day to talk with you as you type away at your laptop, working from home.

As he falls onto the hotel bed (unmade because the hotel maids and the members of the team can’t risk transmission), he fumbles for his phone, left charging as he trained the team. He squints at the screen, far too bright for a room with the lights off.

There’s a voicemail from you. 

It’s not entirely out of the ordinary, but you tended to send him a text if it was during the day. Running a hand through his dark hair, he enters his voicemail password before pressing play.

“Hey, Haji,” the first thing he takes note of is the shake of your voice - it makes him shoot up, “so, uh, I’m, I’m on my way to the doctors right now - there’s no walk-ins open so I’m going to the ER.” He’s picked up on the nasally aspect of your voice, the way you sniffle between some words, “My shoulder, it’s been bugging me - down around my bicep, too. I didn’t want to bother you or worry you, but it’s been three days and… and I’m scared Haji.” He’s scared too. Since the first year of high school, you’ve had this benign growth in your arm - it’s scared you, been the source of a few breakdowns over the years, but it’s never actually hurt before to his knowledge.

“Just, just please call me when you get this, today’s going to be really long and I really just wanna hear your-” he hangs up before you finish, finding your contact and hovering over the call button before moving less than an inch over to face time you instead. The dial-up sound only provokes his anxiety - he can see the crease in his eyebrow when he looks in the rectangular viewfinder.

“ _ Hey _ ,” your voice comes through softly, so soft that he checks the volume of his phone. Your sitting on your shared bed - it looks equally unmade as his, under one of your novelty throw blankets - a yellow and black MSBY blanket he’d brought home from work; it’s fuzzy and it’s warm and he thinks you spray it with his cologne when he’s gone too long.

“Are you okay?” His own voice is unusually soft and he almost wonders if you heard him.

“A little shaken up, I guess,” you pull the blanket tighter around you, the shift revealing that there’s, in fact, two piled on top of you, “they said try not to worry about it and they put me in for an MRI next week on Thursday.” You scoff, wiping at your cheek.

He runs his hand through his hair again, “The fuck do they know about worrying?” He’s already made up his mind - he’s coming home, regardless of how much MSBY needs him here, “Have you eaten today?”

“Not much - I picked at a microwave dinner and had an ice cream sandwich; I’ve mostly had fluids today: coffee, water, tea.” You bring a cup of something to your mouth, swallowing before you continue, “I had a Powerade or whatever because I cried in the parking lot for like twenty minutes after the ER nurse saw me.” You laugh because what else are you going to do.

“Try to snack on something - I’ll make you pancakes in the morning.” He lays his phone down on the comforter, digging through the hotel dresser that he had only bothered to use because he thought he’d be staying here a while.

“Hajime, you’re not leaving-”

“Yes, I am - especially if you’re getting an MRI, the contrast makes you drowsy,” he leans over the screen, only to look at you when he says, “I’m not letting you take a taxi to and from the hospital.”

It continues like that: you telling him to stay, him insisting that he leaves. He won’t have any of what you’re saying, obviously. He says it’s because of how sluggish you are afterwards (makes a point of reminding you how you cling and doze on his shoulder any time you get that little IV taken out of your vein); in reality, it’s because he’d feel sick to his stomach if something was wrong and he wasn’t beside you for as much of it as possible. Even if he only played chauffeur and never went into an appointment with you, he wants to be at home.

“Don’t wait up for me, I have my keys,” he’s not all that concerned about making sure he has everything - if he gets home and finds that he left a shirt or his earbuds he could always get someone to hold onto it, “I’ll be home in a bit.”

You, having given into him long ago, hum and yawn while pulling your blankets tighter, “Drive safe, okay?”

“I know - I’m going to talk to the head coach now, I’ll text you when I’m leaving the parking lot. Love you” He waits for you to say it back, smiling softly at his phone before hanging up. He puts on his mask, heads down the hall and prepares to explain the short of it to the coach.

As promised, he texts you before pulling out of the parking spot he’d been in for weeks. He can’t get over it - that the nurse told you not to worry, that you felt like you couldn’t tell him right off the bat when you thought something was wrong, that you had to go to the ER scared and alone. It’s not right. You’re a good person. What if something is genuinely wrong, what if this isn’t just you sleeping on it wrong.

It’s nearly midnight when he pulls into the driveway, but he doesn’t get out immediately. He stares straight on, at the small house you had pooled your money to get less than two years ago. How there’s a ring hidden under the kitchen sink because there just hasn’t been the right time to ask you since he bought it three months ago. How you’re on the second floor, hopefully, fast asleep. How there’s a draft in the basement that he hasn’t gotten to fixing. How there’s bright yellow wallpaper in the kitchen that he wanted to replace but you insisted on keeping.

Would he be able to look at it if you were in the hospital? Would he be able to enter this house, this home, if you weren’t there? Would he ever be able to take that ring out from under the pipes? If your laugh didn’t echo throughout the home, would he be able to stand the silence? If this building would revert from his home to his house if you weren’t there. 

Would he be able to stomach walking through that front door after a funeral? After  _ your _ funeral?

The heel of his palm hits the steering wheel once, twice, three times - careful not to lay on the horn by accident. He feels a scream bubbling up in his throat and bites his knuckles, a few tears slipping out.

He can’t stop thinking about you in the hospital, him not being able to see you because of restrictions, not being able to hold your hand even though you’re scared; even though he’s scared.

How would he tell your friends?  _ Hey guys, that lump in (Y/n)’s arm has turned malignant - they’re in the hospital _ . How would he tell them if you…

His hand hits the wheel again and then he greedily drinks from the water bottle in the console, then wipes at his eyes. His eyes are puffy, but in the dim light, you won’t be able to tell. 

He does his best to open and close the door quietly, cringing at the beeping of the alarm system. He drops his bag by the door, going to the kitchen to wash his hands. He’s glad he can’t see the yellow wallpaper. He ducks under the sink, sitting in front of it as he toys with the little velvet box. He opens it, staring at the band inside - two small diamonds directly beside each other on a silver band, both of your names on the interior (well, there will be once he makes sure it fits). He twirls it in his fingers. Oikawa, Mattsun, Makki, even Atsumu told him he should buy you something with a bigger rock, but he refused because he saw it in the showroom and all he could think about was you. If you don’t like it, he’ll gladly take you to get a different one - he wants you to adore whatever ring you wear, to look down at it and be reminded of how much he loves you.

He puts it back in the box, almost puts it behind the pipe again but stops short and keeps it in his fist instead. He pushes himself up, walking towards the stairs (he skips the fourth one, it creaks but you told him not to worry about fixing it because  _ it gives the house character _ ). 

He’s pleased to find no light coming from the bedroom, the outline of you under what he thinks might be three blankets now, laying on your back. He quickly changes into sweatpants and a tank top, stashing the little box in his bedside table before climbing in beside you, turning on his side to look at you. He brushes some hair from your face, watching your nose twitch - your forehead feels warm, probably from being so bundled up. Carefully, he peels back the top layer of your shared blanket, then ever so carefully takes that fluff yellow-black MSBY throw and tosses it to the floor at the end of the bed; he repeats the action with the other blanket you’ve enveloped yourself with (a thinner one from when you were a teenager, it’s got some of your favourite anime characters on it). You’re wearing a tank top and it dawns on him that he can’t remember the last time he saw you in one.

Had this been bugging you longer than you’d let on? He remembers back in high school you’d go out of your way to cover your arms, wear clothes too baggy when you could - he remembers you ordering your uniform jacket a few sizes too large so it wouldn’t stick out under the fabric.

His hand runs over the bump. It’s hard, made of bone that didn’t know when to stop growing. The edges are round, smooth, wrapped from the front of your arm to the inside. He scarcely remembers a time when you would wear even a t-shirt in public.

_ “Go on - touch it!” Your blazer draped over your bag as you roll your sleeve as far back as it’ll go. Makki and Mattsun stare at it, both of them with raised fingers just inches away from your bicep. To any passers-by, it looks like a young girl flexing an impressive bicep muscle, but to the group of five, it’s you - fresh back from a doctors appointment this morning. _

_ Iwaizumi, in all his time knowing you, never thought he’d get any skinship with you, let alone that you’d excitedly ask him and the others to do it. He pretends he’s indifferent, rolling his eyes and elbowing Oikawa when the setter becomes a little too dramatic. _

_ “I don’t get it; just feels like bone to me,” Makki says. _

_ “Yeah, what's the big deal?” Mattsun asks. _

_ You roll your eyes, gripping the strawberry-haired boy’s hand and pressing his palm completely to the bump, “It’s because you don’t have context,” you press his hand into it, everyone taking note of how his hand is perpetually cupped against something unforgiving, “here's the bump, here’s the regular bone.” You move his hand down to the lower half of your upper arm.  _

_ Makki’s eyes widen (along with the other three boys) as his fingers sink into the fat of your skin. _

_ “See? It’s fucking huge!” You say, letting Makki’s hand go in favour of taking Mattsun’s hand which he had already begun to extend, “Doc said it’s like three times the size of the rest of my bone, biggest he’d ever seen.” You repeat the action from before with Mattsun, everyone once again stunned by how his fingers sink into your skin as they move down your arm. _

_ Oikawa’s melodrama is replaced by genuine curiosity as he steps forward, waiting his turn to touch the novelty of the group, “And you’re okay, right?” He asks as his hand rests on it. _

_ You nod, “They’ve gotta send me for a couple MRI’s, but since I don’t remember when it showed up they think it’s been there a while,” you move his hand down, scrunching your nose at the little gasp he lets out, “so long as it stopped growing with me, I’m a-okay.” _

_ “How do they know you’ve stopped growing?” Iwaizumi asks, more unsure than the others as you take his hand. _

_ “I’m not telling you guys ‘cause you’ll be grossed out,” you reply, pressing his hand against your arm, “just trust me - the doctor said so.” _

_ “Well, there's gotta be a reason he knows it,”  _

_ “Yeah, he can’t just say things without proof,”  _

_ “Just tell us - we don’t get grossed out.”  _

_ Iwaizumi gears up to tell them to back off as his hand sinks into the fat of your upper arm, but you sigh and give into them - “It’s because girls stop growing about two years after they get their first period and I got mine in year one of middle school.” All of the boys recoil at the mention of your period, “I told you you’d be grossed out!” You say, rolling your sleeve back down. _

Looking back, he thinks that’s how you coped with having been told at the ripe age of fifteen that you were at a higher risk for cancer - that you essentially had a bomb in your arm and no one could tell you when or if it would go off. He thinks you dealt with it by showing it off to your friends like a cool bug you found, letting them poke at it like weird science.

His fingers run over it again then he lies back. It’s going to be a restless night for him; he thinks the only reason you’re asleep right now is because you must’ve been crying. He pulls the blanket back over you both, carefully putting his arm around your middle. He kisses your shoulder and just gazes at you.

You wake up smelling vanilla in the morning.

* * *

Two months. Two MRI’s and a CAT scan. Finally, you’re meeting with an actual doctor. The pain stopped the day Iwaizumi got back, but you’ve made up your mind - you’re getting this thing taken out.

“Hello, I’m doctor Takahashi,” a woman says through a zoom call, “it’s a pleasure to meet you Ms (L/n).”

You swallow thickly before responding, “You too - is it okay if my boyfriend sits in on this?” You gesture vaguely to Iwaizumi who’s standing off-screen, waiting for the ‘okay’. You assume he’s glaring at his phone because Oikawa’s being dramatic and already asking how the appointment went, what the diagnosis is.

She smiles, “Whatever makes you most comfortable,” you hear shuffling on her end as you wave Iwaizumi over, him leaving his phone as far away as possible. He waves silently as he sits beside you, your hand finding his immediately out of frame.

“So you were complaining of arm and shoulder pain - is it still there?” There's some clacking as she types.

“No, it was gone a day or so after the initial ER visit but it had lasted about five days.” You hold your breath as she reads over something.

Smiling again, she faces the camera, “Well, there's been no growth that I can see - you most likely just slept on it wrong.” You and Iwaizumi both breath out as she continues, talking about how the scans look the same as the ones from high school. “Any other concerns you’d like to bring up?”

“Doctor Takahashi, I’d like to get it removed - I know there's a risk of nerve damage but I can’t deal with it any more.” You squeeze Iwaizumi’s hand tighter, “It hurts wearing wired bras, they make my hand go numb, and sports bras make my skin flare up; I don’t feel comfortable leaving it.” You watch as her brow furrows.

She types some more, “It doesn’t say any of that on your file - did you tell your doctor or did this start recently?”

Again you squeeze Iwaizumi’s hand, only this time in annoyance with your original doctor, “Yes, I told him - I told him that the wiring hurt and that I want it removed the very first time I saw him and he told me there are  _ ways around bra straps _ .” Iwaizumi huffs out a laugh but plays it off as a cough.

“And you told him you wanted it removed?”

“He told me that because it was elective it would take longer and to just forget about it since it wasn’t hurting me.”

“And he didn’t make a referral to a surgeon for you?”

“Not once,”

She huffs before going to her keyboard, furiously typing, “If he wasn’t retired I could get him in a bit of trouble for you,” she turns back to her camera, “but I’ll see what I can do about getting you a consultation with a surgeon as soon as possible - and you didn’t hear it from me  _ but _ play up your symptoms, any pain you associate with it, tell them.” Iwaizumi chuckles again but doesn’t bother playing it off this time.

“Thank you, really.” You smile.

“No problem, it’s my job.” Some other formalities are taken care of before the call ends and you fall back, leaning into Iwaizumi in the process. His phone goes off for the umpteenth time on the countertop - he groans, leaning into you as well.

“We should probably tell Oikawa and the others that I’m not dying.” You wrap your arms around him, nuzzling into his neck, “You still gonna love me with a nasty scar on my arm?”

His strong arms engulf you, hands splayed on your back, “Eh, he can wait a little longer - and of course I’ll still love you,” he scoffs because how could you ask such a ridiculous question.

“I feel like there's a weight off my chest,” You hum.

He kisses the top of your head, “Good-” he inhales as if he’s about to say something else, but your phone goes off beside you.

“We really should tell him I’m okay,” you pull your face from Iwaizumi’s neck, reaching for your phone but he stops you, pressing a kiss to your lips. It’s full of love and adoration as he holds his palm to your cheek.

“He can wait a little longer,” he mumbles. He’s just so glad you’re okay - all he wants to do is kiss and hold you for hours and hours; cherish you forever, “five minutes then we’ll tell him - okay?”

“I think five or ten minutes wouldn’t hurt.”

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading, comments and kudos are appreciated


End file.
